Social evils and technology | Rising Kashmir

As the world is shirking on Kashmiris palms, people here are losing much of their privacy and are more vulnerable to social evils than ever before. Over the years, cell phones have become a permanent fixture of life, becoming more powerful and more intelligent every year. Everyday mobile companies are giving new applications to make the interface dynamic and easy to navigate, and thus by it allowing more people to share and interact.  From time to time experts have shown their grave resentment against the cell phone abuse. Youth now have an easy excess to adult websites, MMS and other activities traditionally considered immoral and a bad influence on the social fabric. In past some of the MMS have created shocks in this traditionally conservative society as many people were found involved in immoral activities and other crimes. With the inception of mobile technology a person can easily be tracked and his intimate private conversations are just button away from going into public. Mobile can reveal where they attend religious services and what political meetings or protests they are involved in. Privacy and culture are at logger heads with the evolving technology as its benefits are overthrowing the century old traditions. But the choice is a difficult one to make. Students with a click of button can excess the latest and most modern researches on any subject.  The study which earlier used to be completed in years is now a matter of days. Because of internet merging with the mobile phone technology, education is becoming easy and more dynamic. Despite such huge advantages mobile mess is taking youth to new levels of immoral behavior. However before bashing the technology we all should remember that it is not without its beneficial consequences. It is only through extremes that men can arrive at the middle path of wisdom and virtue. Whatever the context of current social evils, the civil society should expand the area of response. Religion no doubt forms the bedrock of social reform and can be employed as an effective tool to mend the social behaviors but the magnitude of this problem requires more than a religious sermon. Preachers and clerics should not be left alone in this task.  Social waywardness in Kashmir should not be blindly ascribed to the perceived deviation from religion. There are a host of factors involved. While the government cannot escape responsibility to create conditions for a civilized, dignified life in the territory it governs, society on its part has to go for little soul searching. There is a dire need to engage civil society organizations, educated and well meaning citizens and start deliberating on the issue.